This article is a study of bicameral conflict resolution between the Council and the European Parliament in the European Union, which has established a bicameral conciliation process under the co-decision procedure. Scholars commonly agree that the European Parliament has gained power under the co-decision procedure, but the impact of the conciliation process on the power distribution between the Council and the European Parliament remains unclear. The scholarly debate suggests that the power of the institutional actors depends on their proximity to the status quo, the (im-)patience and the specific preference distribution of the institutional actors, although most analyses assume that the Commission plays an insignificant role. Using an ordered probit model, this study examines the power distribution between the two institutional actors, the factors for their bargaining success and the role of the Commission in the period between 1999 and 2002. The findings show that the European Parliament wins most conflicts, but that the Council is more successful in multi-dimensional disputes. The results confirm some theoretical claims made in the literature, such as the importance of the status quo location and of preference cohesiveness. However, they also reject a major assumption in the literature on the irrelevance of the Commission in the conciliation process, which we show to have an influential informational position for parliamentary success. T H E C O N C I L I A T I O N C O M M I T T E E : I N S T I T U T I O N O F B I C A M E R A L C O N F L I C T R E S O L U T I O NThis study examines bicameral conflict resolution in the conciliation process of the European Union (EU). Compared to the insightful scholarly discussion on the merits of bicameralism in general, and the increasing role of the European Parliament (EP) in EU legislation in particular, we have little evidence on the mechanism of the conciliation process and the distribution of power between the European Parliament and the Council in the conciliation committee. The predominant view is that conciliation committees are smaller, and therefore it is easier to bargain and trade votes in a co-operative manner.1 This co-operative perspective has drawn attention to the question of bicameral representation in conciliation committees and shifted the focus away from institutional characteristics of decision making and the analysis of conciliation outcomes. In their seminal study on bicameralism, Tsebelis and Money remind us of the mixed nature of conciliation committees: 'decision making in these committees is cooperative', but 'the composition of the committee, its decision-making rule, and the set of bicameral restrictions are critically important to the results of bicameral bargaining'.

Scholars have raised doubts about the ability of political parties to fulfil their traditional role as 'transmission belts' between citizens and legislators in the EU. We discuss how the different institutional environment of the EU affects the assumptions and predictions of theories of political parties developed for the national context and discuss how political parties can influence EU legislative decision-making. We distinguish between partisan effects in the electoral and legislative arena, and argue for a clear distinction between the effects of national parties, national party delegations and transnational party groups when studying EU party politics. The empirical literature shows that, whereas parties play a role in most institutions, they are not always the dominant players, and their effect varies both across and within these institutions.

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